Steele Opening Day Starter/Initial Rotation discussion

[Bertz]

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Unsurprising but good to see.  Will be interested to see how Counsell sequences the rest of the starters.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them go Steele/Hendricks/Shota/Wicks/Taillon.  You can't avoid consecutive lefties, so you do it with the 2 that are least similar.  Taillon behind Hendricks is mostly a nod to last year's performance, plus Taillon probably needs a few extra days anyway with his slower ramp up.

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Unsurprising but good to see.  Will be interested to see how Counsell sequences the rest of the starters.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them go Steele/Hendricks/Shota/Wicks/Taillon.  You can't avoid consecutive lefties, so you do it with the 2 that are least similar.  Taillon behind Hendricks is mostly a nod to last year's performance, plus Taillon probably needs a few extra days anyway with his slower ramp up.

I wonder if there's anyone they view as good/bad matchups for the first few teams on the schedule.  For instance the Rangers without Seager/Lowe are probably a but more vulnerable to righties than normal?  Dodgers best bats aside from Betts are generally lefties, etc.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Renamed the thread since this seems like a thru-line worth keeping together.  Taillon, who hasn't debuted in Arizona yet, got scratched with a back issue in warmups: 

 

Have to think his opening day is in jeopardy now, probably good news for Wesneski if he continues to show well like he did against Cincy?

[Bertz]

Back issue might be good news.  I had assumed he'd further strained his calf that's been bugging him all spring. Given the time of year this might be something  as simple as he slept wrong.

Either way the early season schedule, Dodgers series aside, is pretty forgiving in terms of opposing lineups.  Sliding Wesneski or Assad in the rotation for a handful of starts won't hurt too much IMO.

[Bertz]

Per Sharma, sounds like Taillon’s probably fine

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Behind Steele in the rotation will likely be Hendricks, Jameson Taillon and Shota Imanaga with Jordan Wicks, Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski and Drew Smyly all competing for the final spot. Taillon was scheduled to make his 2024 Cactus League debut Saturday after only pitching on the back fields this spring but was scratched with lower back tightness.

“Just locked up on him about 10 pitches into the mound portion of the warmup,” Counsell said. “Hope to know more tomorrow, see what happens overnight.”

Counsell said the hope is it’s just a spasm and quickly goes away, that nothing like this had bothered Taillon previously this spring and there were no plans for imaging on his back at this time. A team source indicated that this issue has popped up for Taillon during his career in the past and while it’s painful initially, it often is gone entirely after a few days.

 

 

[KCCub]

 

[Bertz]

Welp, here's your shot Hayden

[Bertz]

Quote

For now, it looks like Taillon won’t miss significant time. A minimum stint on the IL — backdated three days from Opening Day — would have him ready to go on April 9 — 10 games into the season. That could mean just one fill-in start would be needed during his absence.

 

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Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski, Drew Smyly and Javier Assad were all competing for the fifth starter spot before Taillon’s injury. Counsell said Wicks “carries himself like someone who’s pitched for a long time in the big leagues,” and complimented his mound presence, competitiveness and preparation. The rookie lefty has felt like a favorite to round out the rotation, and with another spot likely open to start the season, the chances of his inclusion only increase.

Quote

 

What throws a little wrinkle into how the rotation plays out to start the season is Shota Imanaga’s schedule. Coming from Japan, Imanaga is accustomed to pitching every sixth day. Imanaga has remained on that schedule this spring and while Counsell has said they won’t go to a six-man rotation, there have been hints that they’ll be creative with how to get him some rest.

“He’s gonna be a starter,” Counsell said. “How often he pitches — we’re not going to make a special schedule for Shota, we’re going to make a schedule for our pitching staff.”

The Cubs start the season with 12 games in 15 days, so they could space things out for Imanaga so that he remains on his longer rest schedule. Cubs pitchers have been made aware that being careful with Imanaga’s rest days is a priority. So even before Taillon’s injury, some machinations with the rotation and how they’d deploy their starters were being discussed.

 

 

[squally1313]

Going to continue my annoying trend of making dumb trade suggestions by saying that we should trade for Cease (and we should also consider including Moncada) for not high end prospects and various other flotsam with endless team control and solve all our problems at once. If we need to make salaries work, hope Taillon didn't put the Sox on his 10 team no trade list (he almost certainly did), and swap his bad contract for Moncada's

I'm bored, season needs to start, feel free to ignore me.